Posts by Melanie Rogers

Helping you navigate through life

Written by Melanie Rogers, MMFT, LPC-MHSP Photo by Lisa Nottingham No one escapes life without suffering. Whether you would describe your suffering as abandonment, rejection, grief, betrayal, or abuse, all suffering can leave us with deep wounds and name us as Forgotten, Unlovable, Damaged, and Disposable. However, suffering also seems to be a necessary passage through which a great many beautiful, rich, and captivating souls have passed. Though it can be a terrifying choice to surrender our control and be willing to feel the pain of life, there seems to be an element of mysterious mercy at play when we entrust

Written by Melanie Rogers, MMFT, LPC-MHSP When asked what makes loneliness hard to admit, people of all ages often say that they believe loneliness means they are messed up, defective, a loser, friendless, or unlovable. This condemning voice that calls us names is what Dr. Chip Dodd calls the voice of toxic shame in his book, The Voice of the Heart. Rather than lead us to acknowledge our neediness, toxic shame entangles our hearts, tightly binding them up, leaving us unable to experience full life because we can’t experience our natural place. We believe we should hide who we are, and we center our lives

Written by Melanie Rogers, MMFT, LPC-MHSP When I tell people I work with teenagers, I usually get some version of this response: "Wow, that’s a tough age. You must be really patient, brave, or crazy." I may be a little bit of all three. The changes that occur in the teenage years make working with (and parenting) teenagers both scary and (potentially) really fun. Whether the “issue” that brings an adolescent into therapy is anxiety, self- harm, sexual acting out, depression, or relational struggles, a parent’s biggest question is some version of: "How do I make my child's pain and suffering